To start at the beginning go here.
I poured out the drink into the potted plant and moved on. The Dutchman and Mitnick’s conversation kept going and I didn’t want to be spotted. I headed towards the back of the house. I figured it was a good opportunity to explore and if I got caught somewhere I shouldn’t be I could say I had been searching for the card game Mitnick had mentioned. There were a pair of interior doors on either side of the fireplace at the back of the room, but both were crowded with people. Instead I headed out a pair of tall French doors that had been open to let the breeze in. It helped scatter the smell of cigarettes, booze, and desperation.
Outside, perpendicular to the house, stretched a patio of brutalist concrete that rose in rectangles that could have acted as furniture or dragon’s teeth. Couples and groups used them as the former, desperately trying to look interesting or interested, depending on what end of the conversation they were on. One buxom woman merely stared off into the moonlight while a short, round, bespectacled Gallic fellow stared at her chest so hard he might have been about to bury his face in it.
Beyond that lay more impossibly green lawn and the sound of surf. The silhouettes of security personnel, looking more like FSB than mafia, floated around. This close to the ocean the evening’s hot wind was tempered by the cool sea, making it smell like rain. I breathed it in deep.
The desire to leave immediately was strong. I hadn’t been around crowds like this in a long time and at least the day-trippers of Venice had mostly been sober. Being here felt like being trapped in a drunken blob, even the breathable air of the patio feeling a bit claustrophobic with so many people around. Only the guards, remote and neutral, felt normal to me.
What little I had learned so far, though, just felt like a bunch more questions. Sophie was around somewhere – maybe she’d be lucky enough to learn something solid.
Beyond the patio the lawn was scattered with people, the side of the mansion dotted with more french doors that were open, allowing people to move in and out as they pleased. Long, white gossamer drapes hung around the doors, moving between the breeze and the house’s internal climate, occasionally entangling someone too drunk not to avoid the spidery traps.
The house glowed with lights, and by the external ones I could see that not too far in the distance a group was setting up what appeared to be a stage – a band getting ready for a set. A couple was already whirling on the flat dance floor that had been laid out across the grass, moving to their own internal music. A soundcheck crackled through the evening, causing guests who heard it to turn that way like meerkat.
Lured by the promise of entertainment, other people headed outside, leaving a wake of empty glasses, bottles, and other trash. Watching them go I wondered if Mitnick cared if his house was still standing at the end of the night. And I wondered how much money you had to have not to care.
This question only persisted as I went against the flow to head back into the house to continue exploring. I knew, logically, its space had to be finite, but it seemed to stretch all the way to the horizon. A set of lights came on around the stage, causing me to move away from it while drawing more attention from the guests inside. Sticking to the walls of the house I waited for the drunkenly curious to shift their way through the silk of the exits, then ducked into the nearest room.
I stepped into a study or personal library of some kind, thankfully now empty except for a young man passed out on a divan and a middle-aged man trying to amorously rouse him. The older man must have been up to no good – seeing my bulk emerge through the doors, he scuttled out of the room.
The Grecian theme hadn’t consumed this room as it had the rest of the house. It was subdued, with hardwood floors extending up into bookshelves that ran all along the room. A desk grew up off-center. A globe of brass and ptolemaic continents sat next to it. A reading lamp glowed yellow on the desk, inviting someone to sit and read.
Mitnick must have cared about his books, though, because the first few shelves had been cleared, keeping them out of the grubby reach of any guests. It’s possible the shelves were always empty, but I doubted that was the case. The lack of dust supported this. I was mildly surprised Mitnick hadn’t just locked up the room, but I remembered him up on the balcony and that he wasn’t just throwing a party. He was leaving an impression, creating an identity for himself by allowing people to see his home. This room certainly would do that. Perhaps this is where he brought people after he got tired of standing or the party goers were too busy to notice anyone on the balcony.
The desk was locked up tight and the blotter that covered was just an empty green rectangle. The room had three internal exits, seven if you included the two windows on my side and the two mirroring it on the other. I could hear more chatter and splashing from the other set of doors, probably an outdoor pool. Realizing avoiding people is exactly what I shouldn’t be doing here, I picked one of the exits at the back of the room, heading deeper into the house.
The door I chose opened into a long hallway with doors off either side and a surprising amount of quiet. The floor became carpeted, almost as thick as terrycloth, with pedestals against the wall between doors, each holding some piece of complimenting abstract art that resembled a bird’s nest. Opening the closest door it looked like a locker room, but I realized it was a changing room for people going to and from the pool. It was mostly dark, but I thought I heard whispering, so I closed the door and moved on.
I kept trying doors like that, finding mostly empty and uninteresting rooms, feeling increasingly lost, when I opened one that led into an octagonal room. The center of it was dominated by a similarly shaped table, but that was lost under the group of Russians that Sophie and the other women were laughing with. The smell suggested a bottle of vodka wasn’t far away. Several cue sticks leaned up against the table and the room’s walls, suggesting a game of billiards had been abandoned.
Sophie and her dark-haired friend, both close too or in the laps of sitting men, were laughing with glasses in hand as one of the five men in the room was making some kind of lewd joke with a cue.
Read the next chapter here.
Read the previous chapter here.
See the author’s published work here.
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